August 23, 2012

With the news today that Lance Armstrong is surrendering his seven Tour de France cycling titles, I want to return to my rant from last week that nobody seems to notice anything when famous celebrities look a little odd. Here, for example, is a picture of the veteran tennis-playing Williams Sisters from the cover of the upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine. Venus, on the left, looks like an enormously tall and extremely athletic woman in the peak of physical shape. As I recall, when Venus emerged as a pro in the 1990s, she set a record for velocity of service speed for a woman. So, Venus is really, really strong. If you want to see what a woman who can hit a tennis ball extremely hard looks like, look at Venus.

In contrast, her younger sister Serena, who won the Olympic gold medal earlier this month, looks like she's weighing in to fight Jake LaMotta in Comiskey Park for the welterweight championship.

Granted, these are sisters, not identical twins like Jose and Ozzie Canseco, back when the former was a slugging MVP and the latter was a skinny minor leaguer. Still, I'm fascinated that the two would agree to be photographed side by side. Obviously, the contrast doesn't seem to strike anybody else as interesting.

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Lance Armstrong donated a bunch of money to Planned Parenthood because of the Komen fiasco. Even though I'm getting completely nihilistic on the abortion issue, that was a completely dickish move from a guy with one ball.

Saw a pic of Michelle Obama today that had me puzzled. She's been looking "harder" lately and I've been trying to figure out why.

The photo was a close up that gave me my answer. Like a lot of women who don't want to pencil in their brows each day, she's gotten them tattooed and the problem is that the stylist drew those brows at a rakish angle that is very unflattering. You know how a cartoonist draws a character with heavy and angled brows when they want him to look angry?

With the news today that Lance Armstrong is surrendering his seven Tour de France cycling titles, I want to return to my rant from last week that nobody seems to notice anything when famous celebrities look a little odd.

Nobody noticed anything despite the fact that Armstrong got testicular cancer which metastasized to his brain, abdomen, and lungs, had one of his testicles removed, had his skull opened up for brain surgery to remove his brain tumors, had extensive chemo, and then was able to fully recover, train, and win 7 Tour de France titles in a row.

They just thought that this made him that much greater. And in circular fashion, that this showed and proved just how great he was.

They certainly aren't identical twins. One is 4 inches taller than the other, if you believe officially-listed heights for athletes. Also, Serena has a much bigger chest than Venus. I don't think you can compare them.

I saw Sorenstam in 2001 when she was one of the best women golfers, but not utterly dominant. She looked fine. I saw her two years later when she was on top of the world and going to play one tournament against men, she had that Hans and Franz thing going where your arms won't hang down straight against the side of your body because they are too muscular. (By the way, the SPLC went nuts over me pointing that out about her.)

I wouldn't be surprised if they're juicing, but I wouldn't draw those kinds of conclusions too readily from magazine covers. The lighting has been used to accentuate musculature, dark skin always makes muscles "pop" better, and cover photos are heavily, heavily worked over in Photoshop.

She looked incredibly odd on David letterman recently too, heavily muscled and her face looked like she had plastic surgery. google it and all you will find are articles stating how "stunning" she looked. Sheesh. She looked like a bulked up drag queen, but the truth must not be spoken.

Jose Canseco reminds of a lot of Manny Ribera from the 1982 classic movie Scarface. Tall, strong and confident with a good smattering of latino charm. In Cuba nowadays, you don't see a lot of those sorts of white Cubans anymore. Many of them ran away from Castro's regime during the 60's and 70's.

"They just thought that this made him that much greater. And in circular fashion, that this showed and proved just how great he was."

Growth hormones make cells grow. The major drawback of them is that this includes cancerous cells. Dr.'s prescribing HGH treatment ask a multitude of questions about the subject's parentage and if there is any cancer in the family.

Re: Serena. She could be on steroids, and she could not be on steroids, there are some people for whom it is obvious, and some who are maybe, maybe not.

The thing about Serena Williams is that she has had basically the same body since she was 17 years old. No one cycles for 12 years continuously. Also, her parents and siblings are all very large people her mother and father are both well over, I'd say 250 lbs., as are her non-athlete sisters.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050204/sp4.jpg

She could simply be a large, muscular girl with a high level of testosterone who would balloon up over 100 lbs. more if she did not work out 3+ hours a day.

Growth hormones make cells grow. The major drawback of them is that this includes cancerous cells. Dr.'s prescribing HGH treatment ask a multitude of questions about the subject's parentage and if there is any cancer in the family.

Doping athletes also often take insulin which promotes cell growth including cancerous growths.

" I saw Sorenstam in 2001 when she was one of the best women golfers, but not utterly dominant. She looked fine. I saw her two years later when she was on top of the world and going to play one tournament against men, she had that Hans and Franz thing going where your arms won't hang down straight against the side of your body because they are too muscular. (By the way, the SPLC went nuts over me pointing that out about her.)"

I remember that Annika often had facial skin problems, acne, but for the life of me I can't recall if that was early in her career (she wore little to no make-up) or if that was later when she was buffed up.

Do you recall, Steve? If the acne was bad when she was muscular, that might tell us something, as by that time she was of the age her skin should have cleared up.

"July 7, 2010: Williams cuts both of her feet on broken glass at an unnamed restaurant in Munich Germany. The cuts require "18 stitches: six inside the cut on her right foot and six on top of that foot, and six stitches on the bottom of her left foot."

July 8, 2010: Williams goes to Belgium to play an exhibition match against Kim Cljisters."

How do you play a match with six stitches on bottom of foot?

And then this:

"August-September 2011: Plays US Open, loses in final. Does not play another tournament in 2011.

October 26, 2011: Williams retreats to panic room and calls 911 when ITF doping control officer arrives for 6am out-of-competition test. No public comment made by Williams about the incident. ITF anti-doping statistics indicate that zero out-of-competition samples were collected from Williams in 2010 and 2011. No explanation given by ITF or Williams on why no sample was collected during panic room incident."

Off-topic but an iSteve theme: More on the effect of speaking fees. I have no idea if this really explains Ferguson's crappy article, though--often, big name people just phone it in because they can get away with doing so.

Still, the main insight is important--someone like Ferguson can make vastly more money on speaking fees than on writing magazine articles. It's hard to imagine that this doesn't influence his choice of articles and topics.

So what's going to happen to all those millions of yellow "Livestrong" bracelets out there? You still see some jackasses wearing them. I'm sure a lot of people will now find them lying around the house and chuck 'em out wondering why they kept those useless plastic pieces of junk.

"She could simply be a large, muscular girl with a high level of testosterone who would balloon up over 100 lbs. more if she did not work out 3+ hours a day."

I'm with Truth on this. Now that I've been living in a majority black city for the past few years, I've noticed that they seem to have a higher than normal percentage of the super feminine women with long thin hands, child like faces, narrow jawlines and super narrow waists, and also an equally abnormally high number of women who could easily pass for men if they took their wigs off and quit shaving. Coarse facial hair and male pattern baldness, along with deep, deep voices are commonly observed in the ghetto, when it comes to certain womenfolk. I bet if these high testosterone women took up lifting and upped their protein intake, they could very well develop bodies like the Williams sisters.

Also, among the obese, black women seem to be the most likely to somehow maintain an hour glass figure and minimal fat around the face and neck. But it's also the black women who are the most likely to achieve that completely asexual look through obesity.

Oh, and, Steve, I'm surprised you find Venus's body to be more feminine than Serena's. Neither of them has a waist, but Venus seems to be made up of only straight lines and sharp angles. Her breasts look like they could be nothing more than muscular pecks under that sports bra. In contrast, Serena has actual breasts and her hips and thighs have padding that would look odd on a man.

"She could simply be a large, muscular girl with a high level of testosterone who would balloon up over 100 lbs. more if she did not work out 3+ hours a day."

SHE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A LONG-TERM STEROID USER, WHO DOESN'T KNOW, WHEN TO STOP. SHE DOESN'T HAVE FEMALE FEATURES ANYMORE. THE DAY WHEN BOTH THESE CLOWNS LEAVE WTA WILL BE A HOLIDAY ON THE FEMALE CIRCUIT.

I'm not saying Venus is a good looking woman, just that she gives the impression of being, more or less, born that way.

By the way, speaking of waist to hip ratio, did any woman at the Olympics have a 0.7 waist to pelvis ratio? I'm not just talking about Caster Semenya, I'm talking about the American gymnastics team and Allyson Felix (narrow waist, narrow hips, which is better than Carmelia Jeter). I remember one Romanian gymnast who looked like a full grown woman, but not a lot of others.

Is a pelvis 40% wider than your waist simply bad for most sports? I suspect it's bad for running speed and for spinning, as in gymnastics and divings.

Back in the 1980s, the hubba-hubba East German ice skater Katarina Witt won gold medals in back to back Winter Olympics, so they changed the rules to make figure skating more objective, less of an art form. I suspect that sexy = subjective and artistic while nonsexy = objective and athletic.

So, they got 15-year-old Tamara Lipinski, the Human Drillbit, as gold medalist in figure skating because she didn't have any T&A, which by the laws of physics means she can rotate faster. So they put in a minimum age in various women's sports. Which then raises the worry that coaches are doping girls with weird drugs to keep them pre-pubescent.

By the way, sprinter Allyson Felix's combination of feminine and not too sexy is very respectable. I can easily imagine that in 30 years, Felix will be headmistress of some expensive girl's school in L.A., like Marlborough, where Steven Spielberg and Hakeem Olajuwon send their daughters. If through some wholly unforeseen combination of events, I have rich granddaughters, I can well imagine saying, "Why, yes, send them to Marlborough. Headmistress Felix is an excellent role model."

- May not be much of an issue; 6 stitches can be a pretty small cut. A number of football players have played with broken bones, dislocations, torn ligaments, etc. One of the men's 400 sprinters this Olympics broke his leg halfway through his run but continued to run to give his team a fighting chance for a medal.

"No one cycles for 12 years continuously."

-How many decades did Arnold dope?

"She could simply be a large, muscular girl with a high level of testosterone..."

- They said the same thing about all those East German women...

"OT, but this article from Yahoo might be of interest: "Cops get a racial surprise" (spoiler: the surprise is that the criminals were black)."

-I don't think anyone is surprised when a criminal turns out to be black...

"Is a pelvis 40% wider than your waist simply bad for most sports? I suspect it's bad for running speed and for spinning, as in gymnastics and divings."

-Feminine and sports in general don't mix well. Wider hips cause a higher angle where the femur intersects with the knee which is part of the reason female athletes are far more likely to get ACL tears. Another problem is that estrogen weakens ligaments and promotes fat instead of muscle.

On the other hand, these things are needed for having a child, and also higher estrogen makes female faces look prettier according to some studies.

So basically, a female who is actually feminine is screwed when it comes to being a great athlete from an objective standard in most sports. But she is a finely tooled machine for attracting a man, and having children.

In other words, reality is exactly the opposite of what feminists would have us believe.

With the news today that Lance Armstrong is surrendering his seven Tour de France cycling titles

Uh .. he is not "surrendering his seven Tour de France cycling titles". The USADA has zero authority to take anyones titles. The body which actually does govern world cycling is the UIC, and they show no interest in this matter.

"She could simply be a large, muscular girl with a high level of testosterone who would balloon up over 100 lbs. more if she did not work out 3+ hours a day."

Good grief, are we still doing this? Come on, they're all doping. Every single one of them, as much as they can get away with. Yes, even my favorite players (although my acceptance of this fact probably has something to do with my lowered interest in sports these days).

Every time we've decided to believe that someone wouldn't dope, we've been proven wrong. Every. Single. Time. McGwire wouldn't be doping, because then why would he have the legal andro? But he was. Pitchers wouldn't dope, because they need flexibility more than bulk strength. But they were. Most women couldn't be doping because the mustaches and deep voices would give them away. But they do. Lance wouldn't dope because cyclists don't want to bulk up and because he wouldn't risk his health like that after cancer. But he did.

Every. Single. Time. Do the people who still offer excuses also believe in the Easter Bunny? I'm not suggesting that they all be convicted or tossed out of sports; any action taken against them needs to be based on hard evidence. But in the court of public opinion, how can anyone still look at a body like Serena's, and read articles about panic rooms and fits of anger, and still say with a straight face, "Well, she could just work out a lot." Please.

They're all using. Probably even the waifish ones, though they may not be hard-core enough to take it as far. And many stock-brokers and other people in high-speed, stressful jobs are taking ADD drugs to sharpen their focus and stay awake; millions of people who aren't totally happy are dosing themselves with pills for one kind of depression or another; guys in their 30s are popping Viagra for recreational purposes; and practically every person over the age of 60 takes a handful of prescription drugs every day to combat the effects of the modern diet and lifestyle and old age. How many people aren't taking drugs to improve their "performance" these days?

I'm not saying that makes it okay, but let's be realistic: in a society where practically everyone is on drugs, it is really reasonable to think that the group of people with the most fame and fortune to gain from drugs would be the cleanest?

I keep hoping that you'll go back to 1988 Soeul olympics and begin a campaign to have Ben Johnson's gold medal restored, especially since he was the fastest man on the planet at the time and he beat everyone else who was doping as well...follow the trail of subsequent tests, especially the US olympic team's cover up of positive tests...

So what's going to happen to all those millions of yellow "Livestrong" bracelets out there? You still see some jackasses wearing them. I'm sure a lot of people will now find them lying around the house and chuck 'em out wondering why they kept those useless plastic pieces of junk.

The better course would be to research how juicing can be used to rehabilitate people after serious illness.

Could never see why anyone would spend money and time to watch freakish people, except as a one-time novelty indulgence. People like this are eyesores. It's just so much more pleasing to watch the bunnies and cats on National Geographic than to view such unaesthetic folks. Ugly sells, I guess.

"SHE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A LONG-TERM STEROID USER, WHO DOESN'T KNOW, WHEN TO STOP. SHE DOESN'T HAVE FEMALE FEATURES ANYMORE. THE DAY WHEN BOTH THESE CLOWNS LEAVE WTA WILL BE A HOLIDAY ON THE FEMALE CIRCUIT."

Serena is obviously doping. She had to hide when an unscheduled drug test came around once. This is standard procedure for dopers. Take your free strikes and use that time to get clean and then make yourself available for testing. Then go back on the juice.

However in fairness to this she-male tennis star, I think juicing is commonplace in every sport, she just has the misfortune of genes that make it comically obvious. She looks like a drag queen, no trace of feminine features; she's everyone's easy joke about roided out women who have five o'clock shadow and massive delts and biceps.

"Better than half of the black 'working girls' you see are really dudes." That was what the old vice cop told me when I was a young cop.

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the pic. I think they tape rather than tuck.

As to the running from the UA? Obviously she is prepared at game time and doesn't keep the same precautions when she's not. Google ways to pass a UA for a female. I won't bother linking.

If you want to compare these girls to someone go with Layla Ali. She doesn't look like an East German swimmer. I'd be scared if either of these girls got pregnant the kid would come out with a dick and mustache regardless of sex.

"It's kind of sad and pathetic because he didn't just win and cash his checks and lay low. He put himself out there and marketed himself as a celeb and hero."

STFU, you obviously know little about cycling or international competition. Stick to the big American sports. Lance won his Tours races fairly. The USADA is on a witch hunt; they are on a witch hunt pure and simple. If you worked with, or in and around steroids, you would understand how evil these testing organizations and the FDA and DEA truly are. Moreover, the USADA is acting a government agency and should, therefore, have to follow federal law; but in our kangaroo court of a country that was not going to happen. Lance is a hero. He has done more to give hope to cancer sufferers than probably any human being in world history. He showed people that just because they were at death's door, did not mean they needed to pass through. He showed them that life could go on; and great things could still await the sick. Is this really the guy you want to take down? Especially when it is well known that he lost a lot of body mass from his illness, and it is also possible that the chemo could have had a performance enhancing effect?

Tecumseh: “When the Legends die, the Dreams end; when the Dreams end, there is no more greatness.”

Rot someplace hot all you Lance haters. You do nothing but work to destroy a part of our national heritage. And that is unforgivable since nearly every reader of Isteve is likely bitching about immigrants and legalism destroying the nation. Watch your ownself.

I read somewhere that when Venus was nine, she was about 5'8" and ran the 100 yards in 11 seconds flat.

Nine.

Call me naive but I don't think either gal is doping. I think they were born that way.

But what about actors, esp. skinny pale British actors? No names but what about the under-40 actors in a certain recent entirely British-made Hollywood-fronted franchise, based upon a certain American superhero created around 1939? How is it possible for skinny Englishmen to turn into bulked up Americans (or citizens of the world) in several months?

I guess they worked out and watched their diets. Yeah.

Agreed about Allyson Felix. Good role model. Hope she doesn't go Hollywood, like Shawn Johnson, and get ruined.

"Is a pelvis 40% wider than your waist simply bad for most sports? I suspect it's bad for running speed and for spinning, as in gymnastics and divings."

It's especially bad for jumping (even compared to running) which is why 6'5 women basketball players can't dunk. I believe it's also a reason for the epidemic of ACL tears in girls' soccer and basketball.

However I suspect the more important issue is simply the hormones that cause one to have a certain body type. More testosterone means more muscle and less fat*, more aggressiveness and competitiveness, etc. But sure, the male frame is also better for sports.

*I once had a busty female athlete tell me that she'd be in a lot of locker rooms and never seen a girl with reasonably large breasts and well-defined abs. Don't see a lot of well-endowed women in the Olympics either.

serena might be on HRT now. i would say she wasn't on anything 10 years ago. she was simply a great player, or perhaps, a very good player with one of the best serves ever. other women who could return her serve could beat her. which was easier said than done.

she's lucky that henin just decided to quit out of the blue and clijsters decided to have kids. those two combined would have cut her majors total in half if they had just kept playing.

but after getting beat by non-belgians recently, i think she went away for a while and asked around for how to come back and beat everybody again. and now she might be on drugs. it's unusual for a woman to start her normal slow and steady decline in her mid 20s, then come roaring back at 30.

i don't suspect venus of anything. she was a very good player who won several majors, but was never a great player, and has declined normally. she regularly gets beat easily now. i think she's good looking. serena i think is too manly to be good looking although she doesn't look bad. she only dates white guys, so other men must find her attractive.

serena's outbursts: she's always done that. it has nothing to do with putative steroid use. i hate to be stereotypical but that's a very african thing to do. when she doesn't get her way she flips out. she seems like a nice person too, so you always dread the inevitable outburst. venus doesn't do that.

I don't follow tennis, so I am not familiar with these two sisters. But jeez, this photo is proof that muscle just doesn't look good on women. Is the sister on the right an open lesbian? She looks awful. And I thought female MMA fighters were ugly. Those girls are hot compared to this.

allyson felix ran the fastest 400 meters at the olympics. she would have won the 400 easily. she looks like a 48 runner now. that's extremely rare for women. marita koch was probably the only real 48 runner ever, and that was 30 years ago. of course she later got on drugs and went 47.

It looks like a National Geographic photo of Dinka tribeswomen which has been photoshopped to show them in modern clothes.

I have been advocating allowing the use of steroids by athletes for some time on this blog. With this photo the debate should be over. I was right.

It's not that I prefer juiced up athletes, it's just that it seems inevitable. This is a classic case of trying to put the genie back in the bottle (or the toothpaste back in the tube). Steroids can't be uninvented. This photo is a picture of the future.

In general I don't like to watch women's sports. Many sports are just ritualized reenactments of male activities - often war. That is to say sports are typically based on male hunting - not female gathering.

I awoke very early a couple weeks ago to catch a women's basketball game in the Olympics. It was pathetic. Not only could none of the girls dunk, they couldn't even make unopposed layups. It seemed forever before anyone could score a single basket.

About the only normal female sport I have ever actually enjoyed watching has been tennis. I love women's beach volleyball every four years but that is hardly a normal sport.

That is, I liked women's tennis until these two large muscular black women came on the scene. I just can't watch them. Pretty little white girls being beaten by these large ugly blacks. Not a pretty picture.

These black women with the big muscles are like the carny sideshow attraction of "The Bearded Lady". We identify sexually mature women by their breasts and hips. We identify men by their beards and muscles. These two blacks are nominally female but are clothed in male muscles. They are gender benders. A kind of transsexual.

When steroids are allowed I expect adjustments by sports fans. Some sports will fade away. Other new sports will emerge. Women's tennis will become like midget wrestling - a marginal sport for people with special tastes.

Eh, the PEDs in cycling don't usually cause gross changes in appearance. They usually target red blood cell levels to increase aerobic performance.

They use HGH and T, but the objective there is faster recovery time and not so much muscle building. During the off-season they may cycle onto steroids to replace some muscle mass lost during the season, but in general their objective is to be as skinny as possible. In fact, I've heard of some injections to reduce muscle mass in specific areas that don't contribute much to cycling performance, like the arms.

also an equally abnormally high number of women who could easily pass for men if they took their wigs off and quit shaving. Coarse facial hair and male pattern baldness, along with deep, deep voices are commonly observed in the ghetto, when it comes to certain womenfolk.

The Williams sisters do everything together. Many accuse Serena of using drugs, well if she is than Venus is too yet it hasn't helped. Venus' career looks like many other female players' careers in that most of her success happened when she was younger. Serena has had a more consistent career in winning titles. Serena has always been the more robust of the two physically. Unlike Venus, Serena hits a very heavy ball which is difficult for other female players to handle. Serena is also more crafty in changing the speed and distance on the ball she hits. That inconsistency is the biggest reason she wins so often. Other female players are used to consistent ball hitting in practice. Serena's strategy is more like a high school tennis player than a professional female player. It's like how the disorganized, guerilla American tactics beat the organized, well-trained British army in the Revolutionary War. Female players have male hitting partners. They practice with guys who tend to be more consistent hitting the ball to them. Venus and Serena usually practice with themselves and sometimes with guys. Venus and Serena have more experience playing with female players because they practice together than other female players.

Anon -- the British Army lost in the Revolutionary War because their commanders were hereditary generals and complete idiots, which is precisely why the colonist leaders felt confident they could win: they'd seen the British Army up close in the Seven Years War. Where the British barely beat an out-numbered, and ill supplied French and Indian forces. With any competent leadership the British would have prevailed, fortunately for us the class and hereditary system precluded men of talent then. Only with the existential threat of Napoleon did the British open up to such men as Arthur Wellesley (the first Duke of Wellington).

Serena wins because she hits her returns and serves so hard (like a man) that the non-juicing women can't compete. However Maria Sharapova according to USA Today seems to far outstrip either Williams sibling (I won't use the word sister) in endorsement earnings, around $25 million a year if I recall correctly.

As far as Armstrong goes, a lot of cyclists develop testicular cancer because long hours on narrow bike saddles tend to generate that (also impotence, and other things). Professional cyclists were dying of that disease in the 90's -- the 1890's, long before juicing. My guess is that the USADA wanted a scalp and to generate press. The process was manifestly unfair, Armstrong could not present witnesses, cross examine theirs, and the judge was a USADA regulator.

It's not that I prefer juiced up athletes, it's just that it seems inevitable. This is a classic case of trying to put the genie back in the bottle (or the toothpaste back in the tube). Steroids can't be uninvented.

That's a lot like saying that "the nuclear bomb cannot be uninvented". It cannot be uninvented, but it's sill only ever been used twice. If we want to, we can prohibit the use of certain technology.

"Rot someplace hot all you Lance haters. You do nothing but work to destroy a part of our national heritage. And that is unforgivable since nearly every reader of Isteve is likely bitching about immigrants and legalism destroying the nation. Watch your ownself."

"Tauziat's book was only published in French. She had a whole chapter on drugs, and said pretty much what that poster said - that some players were changing too quickly and dramatically in appearance. She also asked why they looked so muscular compared to her, when she had been working hard on her physique for years. She also said: she thought drugs were an American problems, she was disturbed that under the regulations the tour could quietly suspend a player without telling anyone, and she thought that *any* long injury break should be regarded as suspicious."

Is it possible the PEDs actually caused his cancer? That is, did he have the cancer before he became a champion racer?

There are reports that he told his doctors that he took a whole slew of PED cocktails before his cancer. He told them this because he had to since they needed to know his drug history for his cancer and treatment.

The PEDs might not have caused his cancer, but they stimulate cell growth so once he had cancer it could've made it worse.

I don't know if Sharapova dopes or not, but she does have massive goddamn shoulders. They're huge even for someone as tall and lanky as her. Most guys don't have as large, wide and square shoulders as she does.

Lance is a hero. He has done more to give hope to cancer sufferers than probably any human being in world history. He showed people that just because they were at death's door, did not mean they needed to pass through. He showed them that life could go on; and great things could still await the sick. Is this really the guy you want to take down? Especially when it is well known that he lost a lot of body mass from his illness, and it is also possible that the chemo could have had a performance enhancing effect?

He could have been honest and told people that PEDs can do great things and help you after you get sick.

If he didn't want to be forthright and felt guilty and wanted to help, he could've quietly cashed his checks and donated his money to fighting cancer privately.

I remember when tennis was about lanky guys with little muscle tone and short, sprightly guys with little muscle tone playing with finesse. None of them looked like "pro athletes" who worked out all the time. They looked like regular guys who were more like skilled craftsmen in the sport of tennis.

The headline is the interesting story. Despite massive doping in all sports its taboo to speculate about anybody unless they fail a drug test or the person selling or injected them drugs is caught. Look at the fuss over Skip Bayless' comments about Jeter. No one is allowed even to wonder why a 38 year old shortstop who appeared on the decline a couple years ago can be having one of his best seasons.

There seems to be a lot of denial about doping. Fans don't want to acknowledge it.

I have no idea if either Serena or Venus are on juice. In their defense, they were strong and built big as teenagers.

I suspect enough people hate the Williams sisters, that if they were doping, they would be caught.

Not right away. Athlete after athlete has proven you can stay ahead of the testers if you have the right doctor. In the likely event they're juicing they'll be caught eventually, either because a new test was developed and used on a frozen blood sample or someone spilled the beans. But it will take some time.

A 5' 8" 9 year old girl running the 100 yard dash in 11 seconds .2 of a second behind the record set in 1954 and equaled in 1961.But then again a 9 year old girl at 5' 8" is "outside the normal range of a human" as would be expected from being .65 slower than New Zealand's women's 100m record holder. (Adjusted to account for the extra 9 yards.)

By giving up instead of letting it play out, Lance can continue claiming that "hundreds" of drug tests show that he is innocent, and the world will never get to see 10 of his teammates state that they saw him systematically using a variety of PEDs (while likely simultaneously discussing their own use).

There is also evidence that the UCI (Union Cycling Internationale) covered up Armstrong's and others' positive tests. Armstrong may have been asked by the UCI to drop the fighting to protect the UCI management and prevent an even bigger mess. Both were likely to fall, and Armstrong may have cut the rope to save the UCI. Armstrong single-handedly made cycling and the Tour de France well known and somewhat popular in the US, so it's easy to see what the incentives were for UCI to cover up any positive tests.

i) He is a doper. It is the job of USADA to expose dopers.ii) The UCI failed to investigate him in 1999 (when he tested positive), 2001 (when he tested positive), 2008 when his 1999 samples tested positive.iii) The US Justice Dept decided after political pressure from Armstrong to drop the investigation into fraud related to the doping.iv) The UCI failed to follow up on the evidence provided by former team-mates, support staff and others into doping by Armstrong at USP/Discovery/Astana.

The reason why it is happening now is because the a number of people who previously upheld omerta have decided to speak out.

Studying Armstrong's bio-passport from his comeback has provided further evidence to show that he was doping 2009-2010.

USADA are simply doing their job and showing that one of the USA's most popular sports figure is a liar, a doper and a fraud.

As Johnny Rotten once said 'ever had the feeling you've been cheated?'

The comments are interesting. Most commenters seem to be defending Lance and attacking the USADA. There's a lot of anti-government sentiment mixed in i.e. lots of commenters attacking the USADA for using taxpayer money to "hound", "witch-hunt", "lynch" etc. their hero.

Lance should man up and come clean instead of leading these people on. He would if he had the balls....

Is it possible the PEDs actually caused his cancer? That is, did he have the cancer before he became a champion racer?

It's possible, though tying it to cancer is always guesswork and speculation. HGH was synthesized in '81, and was in use in sports in the 90's. There's a guess that it may encourage existing cancer cells to grow.

Armstrong was a very good rider and came into pro racing just as EPO was becoming widespread. There were plenty of steroids and T around, as you'd expect. The 90's were the heyday of EPO which conveyed a serious performance advantage--about 10-20% greater aerobic capacity. That's unlikely to be linked to cancer, though it probably has other consequences.

He won the World Championships in '93 before he was diagnosed in '96. He doesn't strike me as the sort of guy who would turn down drugs on ethical grounds and there have always been plenty of drugs floating around bike races. It's as bad as body building.

"Africans in Africa never have the impressive musculature seen in African-Americans."

I think part of it is diet, but also remember that Americans are fairly unique in their glorification of the freakishly muscled look which is almost impossible to obtain without steroids. Most cultures appreciate men with strong physiques, but if you watch foreign movies or read foreign magazines the actors and male models are almost never as ripped as is fashionable in America. Of course, body-building subcultures exist in most first world countries but it's a fringe activity and nowhere near as mainstream as it is in America.

The statement "Africans in Africa" never as have the impressive musculature seen in African-Americans, makes about as much sense as "Europeans never have the impressive muscles that white Americans do."

Which Africans? Most Black Americans descend from West Africans, and Africans differ. There are plenty of black Africans in South Africa but when did a South African win a Olympic medal in the 100 meter dash.

Which Africans? Most Black Americans descend from West Africans, and Africans differ. There are plenty of black Africans in South Africa but when did a South African win a Olympic medal in the 100 meter dash.

When did an actual West African win an Olympic medal in the 100 meter dash? Never, that's when. In fact in the recent Olympics the combined countries of West Africa collected zero medals.

"Yes, really. Am I the only person on this blog who's ever been outside the US?"

Look through any issue of National Geographic. Watch any documentary about Africans. Though malnourished Africans may not be as big as Americans, a whole bunch of them have hard muscles. In fact, most of them, despite their crappy diet, seem tougher than most flabby whites and Asians.

So while black Africans may not be as robust as American blacks, they still look tougher, meaner, and leaner than most whites and Asians and Mexicans in the First World.

Would you rather fight a well-fed Japanese or a poorly fed West African?

Or look at the documentaries on the Masai tribe in Kenya. They got some hard lean muscles and could certainly kick your butt.

And size isn't everything. When I used to attend city schools, it was common to see black kids half the size of white kids beating the crap out of whites. It's like a cougar can sometimes beat a black bear or a tiger can kill a brown bear twice its size. Blacks got the explosive power and speed. It's like when Sugar Ray Leonard KO'd Donnie Lalonde. Or when Roy Jones beat Raul Ruiz.

remember that Americans are fairly unique in their glorification of the freakishly muscled look which is almost impossible to obtain without steroids

I don't know what the prevalence is of steroid use among young white men - five percent? ten? - but I do get the impression that it's a lot more widespread among young blacks, at least twice as common as among whites. Blacks are more likely to use all sorts of illegal drugs. It shouldn't be surprising that they're also more likely to use steroids.

I have done steroids and testosterone therapy along with a huge part of our population, which would surprise many of the large number. I can see it pretty well if someone has done them or is currently on them. I would bet my modest net worth Serena has taken performance enhancing drugs. If you type up "tennis" and "steroids" on Google, you will find a lot of people are talking about it. Tennis has a very lax steroid testing policy.

Look through any issue of National Geographic. Watch any documentary about Africans. Though malnourished Africans may not be as big as Americans, a whole bunch of them have hard muscles. In fact, most of them, despite their crappy diet, seem tougher than most flabby whites and Asians.

You are delusional. But then, I suppose you are the same person who regularly posts here about the white guys in your neighborhood who were all scared to death of the black guys.

Or look at the documentaries on the Masai tribe in Kenya. They got some hard lean muscles and could certainly kick your butt.

The African-American guys I had fights with could not "kick my butt", so I don't think I need fear your terrifying Masai.

When I used to attend city schools, it was common to see black kids half the size of white kids beating the crap out of whites.

Yeah, you're the same loser posting the same comments about blacks in every thread.

while black Africans may not be as robust as American blacks, they still look tougher, meaner, and leaner than most whites and Asians and Mexicans in the First World

hCG is the only drug i know which definitely can cause testicle cancer with prolonged extensive use. it probably is used for sports, but it's mainly used for fertility treatments.

it literally makes human testicles grow. not just increase their activity, not just increase their output. it makes testicles in adult males who are well beyond puberty, actually enlarge and expand in size and volume.

this necessarily increases the number and volume of sertoli cells, which significantly increases how many sperms a testicle can generate. that's the clinical use for fertility treatments.

of sports interest is how much of an increase in number and volume of leydig cells hCG can initiate. leydig cells are what generate most of the testosterone in a male body. but if you're thinking, i'll just make my testicles a lot bigger and that will give me a big testosterone boost over my competitors, the mitigating factors to increasing your "natural" testosterone output are

1) that hormone levels are regulated by the endocrine system and it has built-in levels that it watches for. so just because your testicles can now MAKE 50% more testosterone doesn't necessarily mean your brain WILL signal them to make 50% more testosterone. in fact, normal healthy testicles have a large reserve capacity which the brain rarely taps into. but it can. this is how normal levels of androgens can be maintained when a man loses a testicle to cancer or varicocele damage. the endocrine system will send all the normal level of androgen demand to the remaining testicle, which picks up the slack.

2) T has to be converted into DHT to perform useful work.

so if the idea is simply to make your testicles a lot more powerful and make a lot more of your own T, and by design, more DHT, instead of injecting synthetic anabolic agents or using TRT or HGH, you have to figure out how to handle problems 1 and 2.

and i don't think this is useful for distance cycling, as other posters have pointed out.

it depends on what african africans we're talking about. some of them are tough hombres. others aren't. skinny stick men who would get clobbered at most sports. this is assuming we're talking about people south of the maghreb. because those guys aren't too impressive.

that was john ruiz by the way, not raul ruiz. and roy jones tested positive for andro in 2000. he was suspected to be on other substances from time to time during the later parts of his career. he probably did not need steroids to box out a 12 round decision over john ruiz, but he wouldn't have done anything against a dangerous 200 pound boxer, so he avoided them. he was still great, of course. no dispute about this intended.

i'm pretty sure brown bears will maul tigers. they're twice as big, about three times as strong, and sprint about equally fast. and they're smarter too. but they're less aggressive and probably won't always go in for a fight. i know i'm a lot more afraid of brown bears than tigers. walking around alaska and colorado without a big gun was never a reassuring experience. it takes more gun to drop them. brown bears will shrug off hits that will drop tigers.

HGH is popular in both endurance and strength sports. The thinking is that it prevents injuries by beefing up connective tissue and that it improves recovery times, which allows more intensive training.

It's used by baseball and football players and by cyclists. Floyd Landis was using it.

"Seven years ago, Don Catlin, then head of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory and the man who, for all practical purposes, created sports drug testing in the United States, told me “you can get away with stuff with everybody looking right at you.”"

"The last time I'd ridden 200 miles, I felt awful the next day, like I'd been hit by a truck. After the Solvang race I woke up and felt hardly a touch of soreness. I also felt like I could easily ride another 200, and I realized that I'd entered another world, the realm of instant recovery. I'll be frank: It was a reassuring kind of world, and I could see why people might want to stay there."

http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/Drug-Test.html?page=all

"NPR's Michele Norris talks with Stuart Stevens, author of the article "Drug Test" in the November issue of Outside magazine. Stevens spent eight months using performance-enhancing drugs under the supervision of a doctor. Stevens is an amateur cyclist, and says that the drugs he took, including human growth hormones and steroids, enhanced his overall cycling performance — though not without side effects."

"NO ONE KNOWS how long athletes have taken supplements, but it's been going on quite a while, since well before the modern era of drug manufacture. The coca leaves that South American runners used for centuries provided a natural boost. Back in the early 1900s, when racers in the first years of the Tour de France ate bull testicles as snacks, they were simply trying to increase their testosterone levels."

I can see why coca leaves would help runners by stimulating them. But does eating bull testicles really raise test?

"There are many people who have tried to judge my actions, to label me as disgraceful or unethical. Time and again, I’ve had to endure the harassment of the media and the average sports fan, who act as though I’ve done something so outside the bounds of human decency as to defy logic or explanation. Yet I think, if we are all honest we each other, we could agree this is far from the case. For, really, haven’t we all, each and every one of us, ritually abused steroids, in a sense?

I ask again: Is there a single person among us who has not, in one way or another, become obscenely rich and successful through the repeated use of performance-enhancing drugs?"

"Following cyclist Lance Armstrong’s announcement last night that he was dropping his opposition to charges that he used performance-enhancing drugs, a sense of profound disappointment reportedly settled over the single individual left on Earth who still believed he was innocent.

Gary Osgood, a 32-year-old sales account executive, and the only person in the world who did not react to the news that Armstrong would be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles with a shrug of his shoulders and a knowing nod, told reporters he was devastated by the story."

"Are you really such a couch potato that those guys seem muscular to you?"

Go to any park in the summer and look at most physiques. And stop living in denial. All over America, guys built like that(in the videos)are going around beating up white people, and white guys don't dare fight back. Why not? They know blacks can beat them up. Wake up, fool.

All over America, guys built like that(in the videos)are going around beating up white people, and white guys don't dare fight back. Why not? They know blacks can beat them up. Wake up, fool.

Maybe but what they also know is that any white man in a violent altercation with a black personman will potentially have events analyzed for evidence of racism. And if he comes off best then thats guaranteed - unless he has rock-solid evidence like epic beard man.

And thats just an individual.

A group of white men cooperating against black wrong doers. Goddamit thats the 3rd Reich right there!

Most blacks are skinny or obese, not muscular. Isteve is filled with sheltered SWPLs whose only exposure to blacks is the athletes they see on TV so they assume all blacks look like NFL linebackers or something, it's ridiculous.

One on one? I'm asking seriously because I honestly don't know. In the past few years, I've seen countless examples of lone black women intimidating or charging at other black women, white women and white men. I've seen lone black men intimidate lone black women and harass the elderly. I've also seen two lone black men fighting or ready to fight each other, when there were women watching and riling them up. But the only time I've ever seen a confrontation between black and white men is when the black men were several and the white guy was one.

Most blacks are skinny or obese, not muscular. Isteve is filled with sheltered SWPLs whose only exposure to blacks is the athletes they see on TV so they assume all blacks look like NFL linebackers or something, it's ridiculous..

Yeah. Though I'm inclined to suspect that the individual telling us how fantastically muscular blacks supposedly are is black himself.

"Go to any park in the summer and look at most physiques.And stop living in denial. All over America, guys built like that(in the videos)are going around beating up white people, and white guys don't dare fight back. Why not? They know blacks can beat them up. Wake up, fool."

LOL They LOOK more muscular, because they have a thinner layer of subcutaneous fat. That's typical for all peole from the tropics. The biggest irony is that their physique is pretty average, when viewed from the European perspective. Yes, they are more muscular than their white US countrymen, but they can't match East Euros.

For a while, I was one of the guys people would gawk at in the gym and get asked questions about my lifting technique and diet. My arms were huge. I wore baggy, long sleeved shirts every chance I could, even when the weather was warm.

I wasn't trying to get big guns, but my body builds and retains muscle mass easily. Yet even at my most fit, my arms never had the combination of mass and definition of a Serena in this shot. I've known skinny yet athletic guys who could never have arms like her's no matter how they lifted. She is either juicing or is a genetic anomaly.

Speaking as a professioanl tennis coach to female tour players, I can say that that all the players know that serena has an genetic advantage over them in terms of power output. The frame needed to support that level of muscular power has not been witnessed on a white person yet and in terms of tennis probably never will.She has been blessed with athletic power, but is very average in all other aspects of tennis performance at the level she competes. In other words if you remove the power from her game to level the playing field she will be a very average player. Of interest is how the other players perceive serena on the tour... unfortunately she arrogant and believes she is a better person than then rest of them. I feel richard let his daughter down. Shame!

There is a under 12 female tennis player in my club - she is an exact mini replica of Serena in terms of body shape - its natural beauty and human variety. Also when you are surrounded by white tennis parents and brats no wonder she got arrogant - it's survival.

About Lance - I understand why "amateur" sports like the Olympics have drug testing - but why in professional sport - aren't they paid to push the envelope? Heck Lance as enough dough to go out and create his own cycling league - "drug testing free".

Speaking as a professioanl tennis coach to female tour players, I can say that that all the players know that serena has an genetic advantage over them in terms of power output. The frame needed to support that level of muscular power has not been witnessed on a white person yet and in terms of tennis probably never will.

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